8

Tick, tock, the years have gone by. Hour, minute and second hands chasing each other around a circle in some manic race to blow my mind.

I can’t stop them.

I could let the batteries die in all the clocks of my house in protest, but time will still proceed as meant to be. Tick, tock. The kids will keep growing and I will still have to add another candle to their cakes each year.


8 years have spilled through my fingers like sand. Her babyness is gone, replaced with long legs, hair that darkens every year and a few more freckles spattered across her nose.

I have a set of candles I bought when I was pregnant with Mia. There are 20 of them, meant to be used each year until her 20th birthday. After they had been blown out, and removed from this years cake, I marveled at the smallest one. It has been burned 8 times now. It graced her very first cake and will be a tiny stub when placed on her 20th.

It is hard to believe we are almost half way there.

Little girl, you really need to slow down. Makeup will be there for you when the time is right. For right now, your lips and cheeks are rosy enough.

A day will come when you don’t pick up your dolls anymore. I imagine the well loved ones crying like the Toy Story toys. Or will that be me when you no longer insist on curling up next to me to get sleepy before heading off to bed.

Gone are the My Little Pony birthday parties. This year, your 8th birthday was a surf themed party. You had nail painting, pineapple and canadian bacon pizza and a surf movie for you and your friends to watch. You have become quite the surfer girl. The real deal, and not just a fad to you. Everything you draw has a sea themed beauty to it and you can’t imagine how much this means to me to see you embrace the ocean like your parents.

I placed 8 candles on your cake this year…each one with its own birthday story. As much as you growing up so fast pains me, it also brings me that much more joy to watch you grow and change into a lovely young woman.

The waves of time march on beautifully, as indeed they should.

Happy birthday little surfer girl!!